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After 36 Years Of Danger On Duty, Falce Felled As A Civilian

Larry Falce, a 36-year veteran of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, died January 2, less than three days after he was involved in altercation following a minor traffic crash in north San Bernardino on Sunday.
The 30-year-old driver, whose fatal assault on Falce on December 31 was seen by at least two witnesses and captured on video, was taken into custody some seven hours after the incident. On Wednesday, he was charged with murder.
According to authorities, Falce, who was off duty at the time, was driving a red Chevrolet pickup through the intersection of Kendall Drive and University Parkway in San Bernardino at about 10:50 a.m. on Sunday when, to avoid hitting a dog in the roadway he “stopped or applied his brakes,” according to San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan. Alonzo Leron Smith, driving a 2002 Ford Explorer registered to his brother, was closely behind the Chevrolet. The Bronco rear-ended the pickup.
The Sentinel has obtained a one minute and forty-four second video on which the confrontation between Falce and Smith is shown. The video was taken by a surveillance camera surveying the parking lot of a yet-unidentified business. As the portion of the video opens, Falce in his pickup can be seen pulling over to the side of the road, passing Smith, in a dark hooded jacket, who is already out of the gold-colored Bronco, which is parked on the street behind the curb cut into the parking lot. Smith, who appears to have just exited his vehicle, comes around from the driver’s side as Falce’s pickup continues forward and moves temporarily out of the range of the panning video camera’s scope of view. As the video pans in rotation back and forth, Smith can be seen walking back toward the Bronco and waiting there and momentarily going out into the street on the driver’s side of the car and getting back into the Bronco. The video pans to show that Falce’s pickup is parked just beyond the curb cut into the parking lot. At the 29 second point in the video, Smith emerges from the Bronco and at the 32 second point Falce, in a striped shirt, is seen walking toward Smith. Smith steps out of the street up onto the sidewalk in front of the Bronco and Falce approaches toward the front of the Bronco, momentarily, it appears, surveying the vehicle’s front end from roughly 12 feet away. At the 42 second point, it appears that Smith and Falce begin to converse. There is no audio. At one point Smith appears to be pointing to the front of the Bronco, and at another point gesticulating as if he is pointing down the road in the direction from which they both came. Around the 53 second point, yet engaged in what appears to be some level of verbal exchange, both men appear to be moving toward the front of the Bronco. Just prior to the one minute mark on the video, with Smith now moving toward the driver’s side of the car, there is further gesticulating from both Smith and Falce. At the one minute two second point of the video, the exchange between the two appears to have become more animated, with something that Falce said appearing to have provoked Smith, who at that point was again on the driver’s side of the car but then comes forward to the front of the Bronco. There is a further exchange between Falce and Smith, with Falce standing near the curb or within the gutter about five feet in front of the Bronco. Smith at that juncture is yet on the driver’s side of the Bronco’s front hood. At 1:15 into the video, it appears that Smith might be starting to get back into the Bronco, but he then abruptly moves forward and comes around to the front of the Bronco directly toward Falce. At the one minute and nineteen second point, Smith sucker punches Falce, who immediately collapses onto the sidewalk. One minute and 21 seconds into the video, a splice in the video appears to have occurred. The Bronco is still in place in advance of the curb cut into the parking lot, but Smith is inside the vehicle. A white SUV in the interior lane of the street has come to a stop parallel to and slightly forward of the Bronco and a man, apparently its driver, has come out of it and is standing in the street some five or ten feet from the Bronco’s driver’s side door. Additionally, two men, one wearing a red shirt and another wearing a gray shirt, are on the sidewalk near the fallen Falce. At the one minute and 25 second point on the video, as Smith begins to back the Bronco up, both men on the sidewalk approach the vehicle on the passenger side, and they seem to be intent on stopping Smith from leaving the scene. At the one minute and thirty-two second point, Smith begins to pull away. The driver of the white SUV, however, has reentered his vehicle, and at the one minute and thirty seven second point accelerates rapidly to collide with the Bronco on the driver’s side of the vehicle as Smith is trying to get away. At the one minute and 40 second point of the video, both vehicles have moved beyond the scope of the video.
Smith was apparently able to elude the white SUV, but witnesses took down the license plate number of the Bronco. That led the San Bernardino Police to the home of the Bronco’s registered owner, Smith’s brother. Smith brother was arrested because he matched the description of Falce’s attacker.
Later that evening, Smith was found at his girlfriend’s residence and he was taken into custody.
Authorities characterized Smith as a career criminal, with convictions for selling marijuana and for gang activity. He has also been charged with crimes for which he was not convicted or for which the charges were dropped, including extortion and robbery. In 2012, he was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and using it to benefit a street gang after he was witnessed participating in a suspected drug transaction. The others involved in that alleged crime left in a vehicle and were not collared, however, though Smith, on foot, was arrested. On appeal, the appellate court held that the gang charge was inapplicable because prosecutors had charged no others in the crime, and the participation of multiple perpetrators is an indispensable element of gang activity. The conviction was thrown out on December 31, 2014, three years to the day before Smith’s fatal encounter with Falce.
Smith had been arrested by San Bernardino police and sheriff’s deputies numerous times, and there was speculation that he may have had prior contact with Falce.
Falce, who had served in the Army before gravitating to a job in law enforcement, was 20 years beyond the age at which sheriff’s employees are eligible for a pension. At the age of 70, he was the oldest deputy on the force.
“He was a very productive, proactive deputy sheriff,” said San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon. “He loved his job and was committed to helping the citizens of this county.”
On Wednesday, Smith pleaded not guilty to the murder charge lodged against him.
–Mark Gutglueck